The Thursday Book Beat: Kinsella Brings Her Hilarious Style To YA. You’re Welcome.

If you haven’t cringed in embarrassment for any of Kinsella’s protagonists, then you haven’t truly lived. Shopaholic was a popular series at my high school and I was saddened to hear that the last book at the time (Shopaholic & Baby) was already taken out of the library by the vice-principal only to be consoled by my French teacher who had an extra copy (a wonderful woman). So to hear that Kinsella is bringing her hilarious writing to the younger demo fills me warmth.

“Finding Audrey is a joy to read – so funny, so warm and with a real tender heart,” said Eaton. “I have been a Sophie Kinsella fan for ever and am buzzing with excitement at the prospect of publishing her to a younger audience.”

Who doesn’t love infographics? The Huffington Post breaks down the why, what and who gets banned in a ton of colourful graphs and charts. You learn interesting things like the most commonly cited reason for banning a book since 2013 is explicit language.

Books On Screen

Penguin Random House (sadly, not named Random Penguin) has sent up a first-look deal with Universal studios on all of their future books. All that means is that Universal will get to look at a not yet published book before the other studios and decide if they want to put in an offer to buy the movie rights. Penguin Random House has done a similar deal with their TV projects with FremantleMedia.

Penguin will publish tie-in books to Cartoon Network’s shows but what makes this interesting is that they can explore ideas that may work better as a book. I’m all for more books targeted at kids and this might get the fans of the show more into reading books in general.